


these flames will be your absolution

by vestigialwords



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2068965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vestigialwords/pseuds/vestigialwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier sets the charges and pulls the pin. His mission is complete and he has orders to report back to base for debriefing, but instead the flames engulf him, lapping at his arms and face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these flames will be your absolution

The Winter Soldier sets the charges and pulls the pin. His mission is complete and he has orders to report back to base for debriefing, but instead the flames engulf him, lapping at his arms and face. Even though his pants are flame-retardant, they won’t last him much longer, but in the distance he can hear a child screaming. Every instinct in his body screams _OUT! GET OUT!_ But his feet disobey, carrying him deeper into the building and closer to the whimpers.

He finds the little girl on the third floor, cowering beneath a table surrounded by flames. A crossbeam blocks the doorway between him and her, but he shoves it aside easily with just his metal arm, the wood snapping and groaning from the heat. She scrambles away when he crouches down to look under the table, and he can see that she's got her arms wrapped around a puppy. He reaches out with his flesh hand and plucks the animal out of her arms and tucks it snugly into his jacket. The little girl blinks at him, her eyes wide with fear but she refuses to move closer when he extends his hand to her. He considers grabbing her and tossing her body over his shoulder, but thinks better of it, reaching up to the buckle next to his ear and releasing the mask from his face. 

His rubber muzzle falls to the floor and he twists his lips up into a smile. It's unnatural and foreign, and for a moment he's afraid that he looks more like a wolf than a man. It must rest easy on his face though, because she scrambles to him then, curling her body into the crook of his arm. He shifts his balance as he stands up, compensating for her body. She's heavy--too large to comfortably carry in one arm, but he finds he enjoys the way her mass acts as an almost perfect counterweight, even pulling his body ever-so-slightly to the right.

The Soldier marches forward, single minded in his new mission: Rescue This Child. His lungs fill with black smoke with every breath and the skin on his back and legs blisters and pops as it melting in the flames. His entire body shudders under the stinging of thousands of needles jabbing at his muscles. He can see that his clothing caught on fire somewhere along the line and it occurs to him to do something about it, but the only things he cares about are the wriggling puppy against his chest and the girl's sobbing face burrowing into his shoulder, staining the black leather of his jacket with her tears.

He nearly dropped her the moment he was clear of the building, his knees buckling beneath him. A fireman rushes toward him with a fire blanket, patting his body down from head to toe, and he vaguely registers the feel of a dog's tongue licking his cheek and the tiny squeak of a little girl's voice:

“ _Merci, monsieur. Mercimercimercimerc--_ ”

Mercy.

A heavy hand snaps its fingers in front of his face.

"How did you burn yourself, Soldier?"

He looked down at his chest and right arm, covered in welts and puckered skin to match his left. 

"I... I don't remember, sir."

The doctor squints at him and grunts once, making a note of it on his clipboard.

They tell him to sleep and he dreams of a tiny apartment with an empty kitchen and carpets that smell of old cigarettes. There's a skinny man, white as a sheet and drenched in cold sweat, wrapped in blankets on the lumpy mattress. His coughs wrack his body for hours at a time and only get worse when the sun goes down. But when the skinny man looks at him with his blue eyes and smiles, no matter how weak, he feels so, so proud. 

The next time the Winter Soldier wakes, his skull feels like it's been scrubbed out and polished to a shine. He tells the doctor that he has a headache, but the man fixes him with cold eyes and more grey in his beard than the Soldier remembers and informs him that it’s a normal reaction to the medication they gave him. The air tastes like lies but he cannot find the words to protest.

His masters send him to New York and he doesn't question how he gravitates to Brooklyn, doesn't think anything of the way a few old women track his face down the street as if they’ve seen a ghost. He has a mission, and he doesn't eat doesn't sleep doesn't think until he confirms that his target's brakes have failed and he watches the car speed over a cliff. The wife is only collateral damage.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted [at my tumblr](http://beccabuchanans.tumblr.com/post/93636135589/the-winter-soldier-sets-the-charges-and-pulls-the)


End file.
